


Dominance and Submission

by Silex



Category: Prototype (Video Games)
Genre: Ignores P2, Infected Characters, M/M, Monsters, Post-Game, Rape/Non-con Elements, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2016-11-08
Packaged: 2018-08-29 19:06:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8501896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/pseuds/Silex
Summary: Something I wrote years ago, right after I finished P1 for the first time. Alex finds himself being stalked by the hunter, but what does it want?





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this thing years ago for an old kink meme and recently rediscovered it. I figured hat some of you would probably like it so I decided tot post it. I hope you find it as much fun to read as it was for me to write.

Alex had no clue how long the hunter had been following him for, or if it even was following him.

The first sighting had been a quick glimpse, an out of place shadow on a rooftop seen out of the corner of his eye and gone as soon as he turned to look. He had dismissed it as his imagination at the time, making him see a heavily mutated walker as something more ominous. There was no reason for him to believe that the thing he had fought on the Reagan was still alive, though a nagging doubt remained. The hunter had proven that it was more like him than any of the other infected in terms of its abilities, and he had recovered from far worse than what he had done to it.

Two days after the first sighting, his worst suspicions were confirmed. He saw it near a hive, fighting a lead hunter, the remains of walkers scattered all around it. It fought like an animal, tearing into the lead hunter with its teeth and claws.

By the time it occurred to him that he should probably attack it, it had noticed he was watching.

Snarling, it released its prey and ran, leaving him too stunned to even think about giving chase.

Since then he had seen it everywhere. Part of the problem was that he and it shared the same hunting grounds, though why it went after its fellow infected rather than humans was a mystery to him. He had seen it go after Marines and Blackwatch soldiers on occasion, but most of the time he encountered it near hives. It was beyond an issue of shared territories though, Alex was starting to get the feeling that it wanted him to see it. Even when it was nowhere to be seen he was certain that it was close by, watching every move he made.

It became a constant presence, everywhere he turned it was there, watching him, keeping enough distance between the two of them that it was out of range of even his farthest reaching attacks. 

Unwilling to make the first move, cautious due to how evenly matched he and it had been during their fight on the Reagan he would stare at it until it left. The hunter would move out of sight, but he was sure it was still staying close by. 

The hunter seemed just as uneasy, never showing any sign of aggression or desire to approach close enough to attack.

Over time the hunter’s constant watching and waiting wore on Alex’s patience. Better at reacting than acting, he longed for it to do something to justify his attacking it. He never truly decided that he would provoke it into doing more than just watching, rather it was a matter of frustration getting the better of him as it so often did. 

Stolen memories presented the idea that when two apex predators occupied the same territory conflict was inevitable. His own experience presented the idea that fighting the hunter would be a mistake. At the same doing nothing went against his very nature.

Sooner or later something would have to happen and so far the hunter seemed to be far more patient than he was.

The encounter where he finally acted took place just before sunrise, near one of the last remaining hives. He had been picking off walkers, driven more by boredom than any actual need to eat. 

At some point the hunter had arrived to watch him like it always did. It too seemed uninterested in eating, though any time a walker got too close to it, it would attack, which was how he first discovered it was there. The sounds of the walkers attacking something other than him drew his attention, and he turned to look just in time to see the hunter engulf a walker with its feeding tentacles. It stared back at him, its tentacles remaining out even after it finished the walker.

On a whim he grabbed one of the walkers nearest to him, shook it hard enough to snap its neck and threw it at the hunter, the action being somewhat analogous to how a child might use a stick to poke a particularly fascinating and possibly dangerous insect.

In flash the hunter’s tentacles were up, catching the walker in midair and pulling it to pieces. When it was done it let out a sharp snort, its tentacles finally retracting.

For several minutes they remained staring at each other. In a further departure from the normal course of events the hunter refused to look away this time. 

Finally, when it became clear that the hunter was not going to make the first move, he made a halfhearted attempt to approach it, just to see what it would do. If it attacked him he would kill it, if it ran he would chase it down and kill it, just to put an end to its constant watching.

When he went to close the distance between them it dropped to a crouch, like it was getting ready to lunge at him. Deciding to take the chance, he took another step closer. It growled, and then it began to change. Expecting an attack, he prepared to dodge the tentacles it was sure to lash out with, but the attack never came. What it did instead was far more horrific than anything he could have imagined. 

Its body dissolved into tendrils, melting and shifting in a way that Alex immediately recognized. The hunter was changing its form, condensing down into something much smaller, and even though he prepared himself for what was to come, when it finally grew still, settling into a painfully familiar form, Alex still found himself deeply unnerved.

He tried to tell himself that it was still the hunter, but to see Cross again was too much and when it called out his distress only grew.

“What are you doing Mercer?” it looked and sounded exactly like Cross, no trace of the hunter remaining in either intonation or the way it carried itself. He had frozen in place, but now it was coming towards him, “Did you think I was dead?”

Alex wanted to answer, but he had no clue what to say. In hindsight it was obvious that the hunter would not have been killed by dismemberment and he had never truly thought that it was dead. The problem was, that right now the hunter looked and for the most part, acted like Cross and he knew Cross was dead. If he were to respond, would he answer as though he were talking to the hunter, or to Cross?

Thinking might have been difficult for him, but it seemed that he had no difficulty over thinking things when the time allowed for it. Seeing Cross, even if it was not really him, brought back too many memories. That these memories actually belonged to him rather than his countless victims made it all the worse.

It continued to stare at him, its expression perfectly matching the way Cross had looked at him during their rooftop conversation. 

Unable to help himself, he looked away, trying to bring himself to accept the fact that Cross was dead and the thing he was staring at was what had killed him. No matter how much he wanted to convince himself that some bit of Cross might still remain in the creature, he knew there was nothing left.

By the time he had come to this conclusion the hunter was long gone, leaving him more confused than before. Was it possible that the hunter had, in some way, been shaped by Cross? Could it be acting on the Specialist’s memories, trying to hunt him down, then recalling how they had worked together and leaving before the urge to kill him overwhelmed it?

Alex had only one way of getting answers, and it was a very effective method, only having failed him once in the hundreds of times he had used it. To do such a thing to Cross was unthinkable, but in the end Alex decided that if there truly was anything of Cross in the hunter, he would be doing the man a favor.

Trying to find the hunter proved fruitless, making him feel a great deal of sympathy for the soldiers he had terrorized. 

At first he had assumed that it would have gone back to appearing as a monster, but as he continued searching he began to consider the possibility that it was still wearing Cross’ form, mingling with soldiers somewhere in the city. Worse, if it were able to look like Cross, it was a very real possibility that it could consume and look like anyone.

After that realization he spent the day attacking asymptomatic carriers of the disease, hoping that one of them would reveal themselves to be the hunter in disguise. In theory he was doing the military a favor by eliminating an unseen threat, but swooping down from rooftops and killing people who were not visibly infected, made him feel like even more of a monster than he was. 

Hearing people scream, watching them run and then having to run from the military, brought back memories of some of the worst parts of his ordeal during the outbreak. It reinforced that he was impossibly far removed from being human and as the day wore on he was ready to take any excuse as a reason to stop. He had no intention of giving up, but the thought of killing anyone capable of begging to be let live was becoming more than he could handle. It was not as though he felt any sense of remorse, rather, it was the awareness that he should have felt guilty and didn’t that made it difficult for him. Being reminded that he was something completely unique distressed him in a way that nothing else could.

Perhaps that was the reason he wanted to kill the hunter so badly, because it too was unique and too stupid to care.

The day wore on, becoming a blur of violence and death, punctuated by occasional pain when he was too slow in avoiding a strike team or too careless in dealing with his victims and consuming them without intending to do so.

Several times he tried to use the hivemind, but the result was the same each time. The virus was dying and every infected knew it, in as much as they were capable of knowing anything. Reaching out to the hivemind opened him to all of its pain and unthinking terror. It was also another reminder of his uniqueness. If he had been like the other runners, he would have been guiding the infection. Instead it disgusted him, despite how much more he had in common with the virus and its monsters than with humanity.

The coming of night was a mercy because it gave him an excuse to stop his search, even if just for a few hours.

Though he had no need for sleep, occasionally he would try anyway. He regarded resting as a normal activity, something that normal people did, and sometimes it became difficult to ignore the suggestions of thousands of memories. 

By the time he reached the building that he had taken to considering his home it was dark out, further encouraging the notion that it was time to rest. It might even prove to be what he needed. If he were to stop actively trying to find the hunter by sticking to the same failed methods he might be able to think of something new, something that would actually work.

His ‘home’ was an office building in the middle of one of the larger remaining quarantine zones, there was no running water and the electricity was out, not that any of it bothered to him. All of the memories that were truly his own were of the city as a disaster area, so none of it was strange or distressing to him. It was all he’d ever known.

There was a barrel on the roof, which he had brought up there to collect rainwater when he had first made the building his home, and next to it there was a bucket, which he filled and brought into the building with him. Some fragment of a memory had suggested the idea and he had gone along with it because there had been no reason not to. 

It was all part of the pointless pre-rest routine. There was no reason for him to do any of it, but going through the motions was comforting. When he actually bothered to give his actions any thought, the closest comparison he could come up with was obsessive-compulsive disorder. The sufferers knew that their rituals were pointless, but they went through with them anyway.

The stairwell down from the roof was pitch black, but the darkness had never been a problem for him since he didn’t rely as strongly on sight as a human would. The fact that his eyes were capable of adjusting to make use of even the smallest amount of light also helped. 

Once he left the stairwell there was enough light coming in through the windows for him to actually see, not that there was anything of interest for him to look at. It had been several days since he had last come ‘home’, but he felt no need to check that everything was as it should be, he simply took it all for granted that where he lived was too isolated and in too dangerous a location for anyone or anything to bother him.

He went straight to the room that he had picked for his attempts at sleep, chosen for its large windows because he had found that looking out at the empty streets below was relaxing for him. Despite his concerns for Dana and his confused feelings towards Cross, he was a solitary creature by nature and being able to see that there were neither humans nor infected nearby was comforting.

In one corner of the room was his bed, a pile of badly torn blankets and next to it were a chair and a table containing a rather random assortment of objects. Pushing the trinkets to the side, careful not to knock any of them off the table, he put the bucket of water down and began to undress.

He carefully folded his clothing and put it in a neat little pile on the floor, then searched through the pile of blankets until he found one is particularly bad shape, which he brought back over to the table. Tearing the blanket in two, he put the larger piece off to the side, dipped the smaller in the bucket of water and began to give himself a sponge bath.

It was pointless since he didn’t sweat, any blood that soaked through his clothing was absorbed by his skin and he had only one set of clothing, which was beyond filthy by now, but it helped him think. Something about the chill of the water helped him focus. Tonight his thoughts turned to Cross, the hunter and the point where the two became one.

He had never actually bothered to determine if Cross had been infected or not because he had no reason to suspect anything. His ability to detect infected took active effort, and with Cross he had never thought to make the effort. Now he found himself wondering if he had ever even met Cross. Perhaps he had been talking to the hunter all along, from the first time he heard the unknown voice over the phone. By the time they had spoken on the roof, it would have been the hunter, but had it been Cross who had come to tell him what to do to catch Taggart?

During their discussion on the roof Cross had seemed strangely curious about what he had thought of the parasite, the hunter in its larval form. It was probably something the hunter wondered, if it was capable of such things. He had often wondered what the original, real, Alex Mercer would have thought of him and there was no reason to think the hunter would be that much different.

Then again, Cross had, right before inflicting the parasite on him in the first place, stated that he felt sorry for him so it might have been possible for Cross to have some interest in the fate of a living cancer. Yes, he was giving the hunter too much credit to think that it had thoughts of its own, everything it had said to him, right up until it revealed itself, had been a reflection of something Cross had thought.

Even if the cancer had been capable of thinking its thoughts would have been simple, instinctive and well below the level of human awareness. Then again, even animals could feel fear. Cross might have wondered if the cancer had been able to achieve an animal level of intelligence, and it had, the hunter was proof of that.

Trying not to think about how his first encounter with Cross might have been his only encounter with the man, he dumped the rest of the water over his head and ran his fingers though his hair, working the mats in it in even tighter in the process. Using the larger piece of the blanket he dried himself, and then draped the blanket scrap over the chair.

Next he searched through the clutter on the table until he found a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste amidst all of the other trash and trinkets he had saved.

Why he bothered, he had no clue. He had never actually eaten anything and possessed no sense of taste, but people brushed their teeth and he was determined to act like everyone else, even if there was no point to any of it.

When he was done with it all, he curled up in the pile of blankets and began the most pointless effort of all. First, as he always did, he attempted to clear his mind, which was impossible. As soon as he stopped making an active effort to think stray bits of memories came to the surface, most of them the last thoughts of his victims. Recollections of death were what he had in the place of dreams

To avoid the endlessly replaying scenes of violence, he then turned to different methods his victims had used to help fall asleep. Counting backwards from a thousand by threes, mentally reciting the periodic table, focusing on his breathing and nothing else, trying to recall all of the different bones in the human skull, repeating a grammatically correct, but nonsensical sentence over and over again until even the words lost meaning, and a dozen other methods were all attempted.

Normally this would continue until he got too bored or frustrated to keep going, but tonight, for the first time, he found himself dreaming.

It had to have been a dream, because he was certain that he heard a door somewhere down the hall slam shut. There was no way any human could be there, no reason for them to go to the top floor of an obviously abandoned building, nor was it likely that an infected would have come all this way in search of prey.

He listened, waiting to see if anything more would happen, but it seemed that even if he had been dreaming before, he was awake now. All he could hear was the sound of his own breathing, the harsh gasps seeming to echo in the silence. He could feel a coughing fit coming on, and he struggled to suppress it. For some reason making that much noise didn’t feel right when everything else was so very quiet.

Rather than have another try at falling asleep, Alex decided to consider what had happened progress in his efforts to rest as a human would. It cheered him up enough that he felt ready to go back to searching the city. The hunter always managed to find him, so he figured that, once he was out and about, it was only a matter of time before he saw it again.

As he disentangled himself from his nest of blankets he began to get the sense that something was out of place. The silence, which was usually meaningless to him, had taken on a sinister quality.

Looking around the room, he saw that everything was as it should be, but hundreds of memories offered hundreds of different night terrors that could be real in the darkness. Never having been a child himself, the childhood fears of his victims left him unmoved, yet the suggestions that they planted in his mind felt very real in the silence of the abandoned building. 

Able to see in the dark and aware that, even though monsters were real, he could easily deal with them, he got up and went over to the desk where he kept his possessions. It was possible that the feeling that something was out of place stemmed from his having misplaced one of the few items that he actually cared about.

Dana’s laptop was the most obvious of the items and it was still there. Even though he knew its battery was long dead, he opened it and pressed the power button. It didn’t turn on, not that he had expected it to. Before closing it, he ran his fingers over the keys, noting a worn spot on the spacebar and how the keys she hit most frequently had a slightly different feel to them, subtly altered by the repeated contact. It felt like it should mean something, but he wasn’t sure what, the snatches of memory hat rose to the surface were too vague, too abstract to offer anything that resembled meaning.

Next to the laptop was one of the phones Cross had left to contact him. This one had never been used and never would. Alex lacked the capacity to imagine that it might someday ring, putting him in touch with Cross one last time. His reason for keeping the phone was simply because it was something that had belonged to Cross. He picked it up, turned it over in his hand, recalling when he had first discovered that the voice on the other end of the line had belonged to Cross. Why he had let Cross live was still a mystery to him. Maybe it had been because he had been desperate for someone to talk to, or maybe it had been because Cross was so quick to tell him what to do and he needed someone giving orders to keep him focused. With Dana hidden safely away in the hospital he had no one to tell him what to do, no one to guide him.

Even now his mind was wandering.

Killing Greene had left the virus without a purpose, and without Dana or Cross, or even Ragland telling him what to do, he had no purpose either. Yes, he was killing infected, which was a good thing, but it had nothing to do with a desire to help humanity. It all came down to him needing to eat, or being bored, or the infected attacking him first. Forcing himself to abandon that train of thought, he returned to the matter at hand. Something was wrong and he wanted to know what it was. Having already determined that his possessions were all fine, it was time for him to turn his attention elsewhere.

He put the phone down with less care than he intended, it fell off the table and clattered to the floor, the sound flat and final in the darkness. Surprise caused him to freeze in place, going so far as to hold his breath, and it was then that he became aware that the silence was not as total as he had first believed it to be.

Something was in the hall, he could hear it breathing, hissing as it inhaled and exhaling with a wet snort.

Dozens of memories offered impossible suggestions as to what it might be, but also giving him an idea as to what to do.

He took a cautious step towards the wall, trying to keep at an angle where he would be able to see it before it could see him, and then took four quick steps towards the door, stopping abruptly as soon as he thought he heard something.

Sure enough, he heard a single heavy footfall, having managed to catch whatever it was off guard. It had been moving only when he did to hide its approach, meaning that it was either human and experienced in tracking things, or that it was some sort of predatory animal acting on instinct. Neither possibility made sense though, unless…

Complete silence was the only warning he got, his unseen stalker holding its breath, then something crashed through the door, slamming into him and knocking him back against the wall.

Somehow the hunter had found him.

It tried to use its greater weight to pin him down, but he was far more agile, able to squirm free and duck under a swipe from its massive paw and then retaliate, slashing it across the stomach with his claws. He would have dug in and tried to gut it, but he knew he had to keep moving. If he slowed down the hunter would have the advantage, wearing it down was his only option.

On the Reagan he had the advantage of open space to maneuver and plenty of objects to throw at it or hide behind as necessary. Now that he was facing it in a confined area he would have to wait, basing his actions on what it did.

Staying just out of its reach, he waited for it to make the first move, clawing it every time it reached for him, watching as the wounds healed instantly. Eventually the damage would begin to add up, the effort of healing exhausting it, then he would move it for the kill. That was how he had dealt with it the first time, though the setting and situation had given him the advantage there. This would likely be a battle of attrition, each of them doing what little damage they could before the other could retaliate.

The hunter roared in frustration, backing up and lifting its paw and blade up to protect its face as Alex darted in to try and claw its eyes out. Taking advantage of the opening he let the claws of his right hand lengthen and fuse into a single massive blade, which he plunged into the hunter’s stomach. It let out a roar of pain as he pushed the blade in deeper, its blood dripping down his arm and being absorbed by him.

Suddenly there was a lack of resistance, he was no longer pushing through a solid mass, but a cluster of squirming tentacles which lashed out in all directions. The first few merely grazed him, opening shallow cuts that healed before there was even time to feel pain. Realizing what was happening, he tried to pull away, only to discover that a cluster of tentacles had wrapped around his arm, holding him in place as more tentacles reached for him. 

By the time he was able to free his blade several of the tentacles had managed to find him, digging into his stomach and chest and pushing him backwards, into the reach of still more tentacles. Armor formed in patches on his skin, the damage already done making it impossible for him to completely cover himself. The armor was enough to prevent further damage as he used his claws and blade to sever the tentacles holding him in place.

Cutting his way free, he fell to the floor, pressing himself down flat to get below the reach of the hunter’s attack.

It let out another roar as the tentacles retracted, this one different from the first, losing intensity and rising up to a scream at the end.

“ – really think you’re going to kill me Mercer?”

The start of the sentence was an impossible to understand growl, but by the time it finished speaking its voice was unmistakably Cross’.

“You’re already dead,” the words slipped out before he could stop himself, not a statement of bravado, but an attempt on his part to remind himself that he was not going to be killing Cross, but a monster wearing his form.

“I don’t believe you,” its tone was neutral as it started towards him, no hint of the monster remaining, “You’ve had plenty of opportunities already, so what makes now different?”

It held out a hand as thought to help him up, but suspecting an attack he brandished his claws at it, thinking that he might be able to drive it back.

Instantly its demeanor changed, all pretense of acting human abandoned, it lunged at him, teeth bared in an expression of pure, animal rage. 

Up close its greater weight made up for its lack of agility and when it grabbed onto him and forced him back to the floor Alex was unable to throw it off.

As he struggled to break away from it he could feel it changing, abandoning its mimicry of Cross in favor of reverting to its own form, one more fit for combat.

He managed to hook his claws into its chest and when it roared blood spattered against his face, letting him know that he had pierced something vital, but instead of pulling back like he had expected it to, the hunter brought its bladed arm up and began to try and cut through his arms. Without thinking, he pulled his arms back and the hunter all but fell on him. For a horrifying moment he saw its teeth, blood streaked and razor sharp, inches from him face, and then, before he understood what was happening the hunter sank its teeth into his throat. There was a sickening crunch as it crushed his windpipe, the serrated edges of its fangs cutting cleanly through flesh and cartilage.

Unable to breathe, his efforts became frantic, his claws scraped the side of its face, cutting through flesh and sliding against bone. The hunter’s response was to shake its head, its teeth sinking in even deeper as it did so.

With its teeth still in him he was unable to regenerate. Skin and muscle writhed and rose up in small tendrils, trying and failing to push out the foreign object preventing recovery.

Blood continued oozing from the wound, some being reabsorbed by him once it dripped far enough away, the rest being soaked up by the hunter. He could feel its skin writhing wherever it came into contact with the liquid, its tongue having already dissolved into a mass of tentacles to creep between its teeth and into his throat to lap up the blood.

Lack of oxygen was beginning to take its toll. He could feel himself starting to lose consciousness and knew that if he was unable to get it off him he would soon pass out and then he would be completely at its mercy.

His claws and blade began to lose their shape, and in a last desperate attempt to get the hunter off him, he willed the change to happen faster. Up this close such weapons were too unwieldy.

The tissue of his arms had not yet completely solidified when he brought his hands to the hunter’s face. It hissed and clawed at him, all the while maintaining its grip on his throat, probably enjoying the taste of his blood too much to want to let go just yet.

He was too weak, his hands shaking too badly to crush its skull as he had originally intended, but another option presented itself when, by accident, his fingers brushed over its eyes. Acting on instinct he jabbed his thumbs into its eyes. 

The hunter jerked its head back with a roar of pain, slamming its bladed hand through his chest before he had a chance to recover. It had literally pinned him in place, its blade having gone clean through him and into the floor. 

He could feel the hunter trying to consume him, tentacles flowing down its arm soaking up the blood and prodding at the squirming edges of his injury. So far its efforts were not very successful, he was still able to resist, but as soon as he lost consciousness it would be able to finish him off.

Too dependent on his mimicry of the human form, he was unable to function without his lungs intact. Logic dictated that he could survive, but he had no clue how to trigger the process that would allow him to do so. After getting caught in the blast when he dropped the nuke out at sea, he had managed to float to shore as a mass of undifferentiated tissue, but the details of how he had done it were hazy. Even simply letting his form lose cohesion and pulling away from the hunter’s blade was beyond him. He lacked the strength to attack with tentacles and what he did when consuming a victim was reflexive and beyond his ability to willingly replicate.

A jolt of pain ran through him as the hunter twisted its blade, then pulled it free and shifted its weight just enough that it was able to roll him over to that he was face down on the floor. 

The tentacles withdrew from the wound which immediately began to close. He was able to take in his first proper breath since the hunter had begun its attack on him. During all this it maintained its hold on him.. Its tentacles had wrapped around his neck and chest, holding him in place while the hunter continued to shift its weight, and then its form.

For the time being at least, it had stopped attacking him and was merely holding him still, the movements of its tentacles more curious than violent.

As close as it was to him, if he were to attack, lash out with tentacles of his own, there was no way it could get away. He began to focus on pulling as much mass together as possible in preparation for an attack.

Some slight movement must have given his intentions away, because the next thing he knew, the hunter had pressed its blade to his throat, “Try it and I’ll cut your head off. You’ll recover, but it’ll take time and until then you’ll be defenseless.”

The hunter had, at least partially, gone back to mimicking Cross. It was speaking in his voice, and from what he could feel of its body pressed against him, it was human enough aside from its left arm ending in a blade and the tentacles it still had wrapped around him.

Seeing no other choice, Alex stopped struggling, even as several of the tentacles wound their way around his legs. Maybe if he waited some opening would present itself, or perhaps he could get the hunter to lower its guard.

Waiting and thinking things through was difficult for him, an unpleasant new experience, but this was also the first time he had been up against something truly able to overpower him. His first fight with the hunter had been luck alone, the open environment working to his advantage. Up close where speed and agility were meaningless the hunter had the advantage.

“You’re going to kill me anyway,” he stated as it used its tentacles to pull him up so that he was on his hands and knees, “So why the hell should I make it easier for you?”

It laughed, or maybe growled. Either way, the sound was something he could never imagine Cross making.

“No, if this was about killing you do you think you’d still be alive? This is about showing you your place,” the tentacles tightened ever so slightly as it said this and its blade started to cut into his throat, then its hold on him loosened just enough so that he could breathe, “Relax and it won’t hurt as much.”

“And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?” he gasped out as soon as he was able to.

Several of the tentacles wrapped around his legs and stomach began to move, loosening just enough for him to pull a leg free. Immediately the rest of the tentacles tightened, the ones around his chest doing so with such force that he could feel his ribs groaning under the pressure.

“I can still do this if I take your head off,” the hunter’s matter of fact tone not at all matching the nature of its threat. To prove it was serious it dragged its blade across his throat, drawing blood, but stopping just short of cutting into anything vital, “But it’ll be better for both of us if you’re in a state where you can appreciate it.”

“What’s that – ”

His question was cut short when the hunter’s actions provided him with the answer. One of the tentacles that had been winding its way up his leg reached his ass and started forcing its way into him.

The sensation of being entered was easily the least painful thing that he had been through so far at the hands of the hunter. The tentacle was more slender than the ones holding him and like those tentacles it did not cut into him or start the consumption process. It was just there, trying to force its way further in, but not managing to get very far.

If he had been human it probably would have hurt, but compared to being mauled it was nothing, barely even reaching the point of being a minor discomfort. Still, he had no intention of just letting it have its way with him. Even if he was unable to fight his way free, there were other ways to resist.

“You spent all that time tracking me down just for this?” on some level he was amazed that he was even able to speak, given what memories said the situation should be like, “You really think shoving a tentacle up my ass is the worst thing you can do to me?”

The hunter hissed, though whether it was because of what he had said, or the fact that it was having difficulties making any progress with its attempt to sodomize him, Alex had no clue. 

“You’re wasting your time,” he gasped, unable to help himself as the hunter managed to force the tentacle in another half inch, “Because I’m not going to scream or beg.”

He could feel the tentacle moving inside him, poking and prodding as though the hunter was searching for something. Despite his best efforts to remain still and not respond to what was being done, Alex squirmed in the hunter’s grasp, in the process relaxing just enough for the tentacle to creep in farther.

“Give it up before I – ” 

His threat was cut short when the tip of one of the tentacles around his throat rose up and into his mouth to wrap around his tongue. Gagging, he bit down, earning a laugh from the hunter when his teeth failed to break through its thick hide.

The hunter’s laughter fell into a deep growl, “Stop or I’ll shove it all the way down your throat.”

Alex shook his head violently, trying to dislodge the tentacle in his mouth, completely forgetting about everything else the hunter was doing. After what had happened the terror of being suffocated again overwhelmed all else.

Taking advantage of his distraction the hunter forced its way further up his ass and Alex felt every muscle in his body tense.

“You liked that!” the hunter exclaimed mockingly, rubbing the tentacle along the place it had found within him.

Unable to talk around the tentacle still in his mouth, he settled for growling angrily, the pitch of the growl rising abruptly at the end when the hunter twisted the tentacle in his ass in such a way that it caused a spasm to run through him.

“I know you did,” it hissed, giving the tentacle another little twist, “And here’s the proof.”

Two of the tentacles that had been coiled around his stomach slithered down to give his cock a gentle squeeze. Until that point he had never realized that what the hunter had been doing to him had been making him hard. Now he looked down at himself, the tentacle the hunter had been using to gag him, giving him just enough slack to do so.

The tip of one of the tentacles was playing over his cock head with remarkable dexterity and for one heart stopping moment it paused as it found the slit there. He feared that the hunter would force its way in there as well, having already invaded every other opening it found. Then the tentacle moved on, going back to moving along the tip of his cock in slow circles.

Everything that happened from there was beyond his control. The hunter knew exactly what it was doing, touching all the right places make him shake and moan around the tentacle in his mouth. Unable to help himself he thrust into the tentacles encircling his cock, causing the hunter let out another little laugh.

“That’s right,” the hunter tightened the tentacles around his cock, stopping just short of causing him pain, “You’re enjoying this as much as I am, aren’t you?”

He shook his head and growled again, but the growl became a whine as the hunter caressed the place it had found inside him. Now that his attention was brought back to it, he could feel that the tentacle in him was slowly growing thicker. It wasn’t enough to cause him any pain, rather there was a feeling of pressure and fullness that was not entirely unpleasant.

Despite his own body’s response to what was being done, he was not enjoying any of it. It felt good, but there was nothing more to it than that. All the while he was thinking of escape, trying to take in the little details of what the hunter was doing, how it was holding him, whether or not it was loosening its grip and if he would have the time to pull free and weaponize himself. The problem was, it was nearly impossible to keep focused when everything the hunter did sent a new thrill of pleasure running through him.

Somewhere along the line the hunter had taken its blade away from his throat, not that there was anything he could do at this point. With tentacles wrapped around him and inside him, there was no way he could escape, not yet at least.

Alex forced himself to think though the haze of pleasure, to ignore the sensation of the tentacle slowly stretching him and the tentacles clustered around his cock.

He could feel the hunter moving, adjusting its grip on him yet again. Sooner or later a chance to escape would present itself, until then he just had to wait. Given what the hunter was doing to him waiting wouldn’t be that terrible an ordeal either. For no reason that he could understand the hunter seemed genuinely interested in doing what it could to ensure what it did to him felt good.

The hunter had moved its hands to his hips, two hands, meaning it no longer had its blade. Even better, its hands were far enough from his throat that he would have plenty of time to act once the time came.

Slowly but surely, he was developing a plan to break free, all he had to do was wait just a little longer.

The tentacle in his ass withdrew, which would have been the perfect chance for him to act, but he hesitated. Morbid curiosity left him wondering what would happen next. Why was the hunter doing this to him? It had said that it wanted to show him his place, but if that had been what it was all about why was it bothering to give so much attention what felt good?

He exhaled sharply, spittle flying from his mouth when, after some fumbling, it plunged its cock into him.

It was not entirely unexpected, but the roughness with which it happened took him off guard.

The hunter grunted, sliding back to the point where it almost left him and then thrusting back in.

“You know Mercer, there’s no need for me to be this careful,” it panted heavily, its voice almost unrecognizable as belonging to Cross, “I know you can take it,” another grunt, “But I want you to enjoy this.”

Its movements were measured, controlled, its thrusts falling into a regular rhythm. He could tell that it really was trying to restrain itself, but there was no time for him to wonder why. The situation was now perfect for him to break free, and as much as he hoped that the hunter would further explain itself, he knew that it would be dangerous to wait much longer. There was no telling if the hunter might get bored or change its mind and decide to tear him apart from the inside.

When it withdrew, the instant before it thrust forward, he jerked back sharply and simultaneously turned his head to the side. There was a moment of discomfort when he impaled himself on the hunter’s cock all the way to its base, but his managed to accomplish his goal of catching the hunter off guard and getting its tentacle out of his mouth. Before it could recover he scrambled forward, his hands becoming claws, digging into the floor as he tried to pull away.

By the time the hunter realized what he was doing, it was too late. He had already managed to cover himself in armor, the pain that came when the hunter tightened its grip on his cock vanishing as the nerves responsible vanished. In armor he was numb to all but the most severe injuries, and more importantly, his hide was unyielding to the point where the tentacles tightening around his neck accomplished nothing.

No longer able to feel any sensation from his skin, he dragged his claws across his body, effortlessly cutting though the tentacles.

All at once the hunter released him and he fell forward before he was able to stop himself.

Recovering instantly, he whirled around, ready to attack, only to discover that the hunter had not moved at all.

It was sprawled on the floor, its tentacles gone, wearing Cross’ form and looking at him with an expression of mild surprise. All trace of animal rage and lust were gone. If not for what he been through, Alex could have believed that the hunter was gone and he truly was staring at Cross.

He would have attacked it, should have, but as he so often did, he hesitated at the worst possible moment, giving him time to take in the situation. This time he was the monster, completely unrecognizable as human and the hunter was pathetic. If it had been anyone else he could have killed it, but not when it was Cross, not like this. Cross, even if it was just a monster pretending to be Cross, deserved better than to be torn to pieces while he had his fly undone and his cock sticking out.

The hunter seemed to know this as well, because its expression of surprise quickly faded to one of clam understanding. Only Cross could look so in control in such a situation, which made it even harder for Alex to act.

He could only watch as it got to its feet and dusted itself off, actually going so far as to not bother looking at him as it tucked its softening cock away and zipped up its fly.

If it had shown any sign that it was going to attack him, he would have been at it in an instant, but it never even acknowledged him as it walked across the room towards the door, where it stopped.

At first it seemed that it was going to turn around or say something, but all it did was shake its head and laugh softly to itself before continuing down the hall and out of sight.

Once he heard the door to the stairs slam shut Alex slumped to the floor.

Now that he was alone it was far too easy to start over thinking the ordeal he had been through.


End file.
